I spent four years as Forbes' Girl Friday, which to me meant doing a little bit of everything at once. As a member of the Forbes Entrepreneurs team, I looked at booming business and startup life with a female gaze. I worked on the PowerWomen Wealth and Celebrity 100 lists, keeping my ears pricked and pen poised for current event stories--from political sex scandals to celebrity gossip to international affairs. In 2012 I helped to put two South American women on the cover of FORBES Magazine: Modern Family star Sofia Vergara (the top-earning actress on U.S. television) and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who is transforming the BRIC nation into an entrepreneurial powerhouse. Prior to Forbes I was at the Philadelphia CityPaper, where I learned more than any girl ever needs to know about the city's seedier trades. I studied digital journalism at The University of The Arts.
I left Forbes in November, 2013, to pursue other interests on the West Coast.

The Thompson Reuters Foundation released a list today of the most dangerous countries to be born a woman. According to Reuters, 213 experts from five continents were asked to rank the world’s nations on their overall perception of danger as well as six high-risk categories: “health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, harmful practices rooted in culture, tradition and/or religion, lack of access to economic resources and human trafficking.”

“This survey shows that ‘hidden dangers’ like a lack of education or terrible access to healthcare are as deadly, if not more to, than physical dangers like rape and murder… In Afghanistan, for instance, women have a one in 11 chance of dying in childbirth. In the top five countries, basic human rights are systematically denied to women,” says Thompson Reuters Foundation CEO Monique Villa.

Somali Women’s Minister Maryan Qasim expressed her surprise to Thompson Reuters women’s hub TrustLaw Women and paints a bleak portrait of life in her country:

I’m completely surprised… I thought Somalia would be the first on the list, not fifth. The most dangerous thing a woman in Somalia can do is become pregnant… there are no hospitals, no healthcare, no nothing.

Add to that the rape cases…the female genital mutilation that is being done to every single girl in Somalia. Add to that the famine and drought. Add to that the fighting.

India

No. 4 India

Dangers: female feoticide, infanticide, human trafficking.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation estimated that in 2009 about 90% of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40 percent were children.

Pakistan

No. 3 Pakistan

Dangers: cultural, tribal and religious practices harmful to women are frequent. These include acid attacks, forced or underage marriages and punishment by stoning or other physical abuse.

“Pakistan has some of the highest rates of dowry murder, so-called honor killings and early marriage,” says Divya Bajpai, advisor at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.

Dangers: emerged as the worst country in the world in three categories: health, non-sexual violence and lack of access to economic resources.

“Ongoing conflict, NATO airstrikes and cultural practices…make Afghanistan a very dangerous place for women,” Antonella Notari, head of Women Change Makers, a social entrepreneurship group, told Trustlaw. “women who do attempt to speak out…are often intimidated or killed.”

The unsettling and eye-opening listing of countries was released to mark the launch of TrustLaw Women, the newest vertical from Thompson Reuters’ Trustlaw. It’s goal: widening access to the rule of law and empowering women worldwide with trusted information on human and women’s legal rights. *I applaud*

Readers: Do you have experiences in any of these countries to share? Do you operate a business in a dangerous nation? Please share your stories on keeping safe and successful against the odds.

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